If I Never Knew You
by purpledragon6
Summary: A new villain, who can change events in history, takes control of the lives of Dick Grayson and Wallace West. Starting from the beginning, he begins the tale with the intentions of preventing the boys from meeting by pulling out all of the stops so neither story will match the other and their paths will never cross. Or will they?
1. Chapter 1

**If I never Knew you: A new villain changes the cores of Dick and Wally's lives so that the two young heroes never meet, and so one of them never becomes a hero. How will their lives play out now? Will they ever find one another again? **

* * *

**_Teller's_**_ POV_

_In was in the Fate's design that these two were to meet. No matter what life or time-line those two were in, there were always on the course of meeting._

_Richard 'Dick' Greyson, as of now, he was 13 years old, about to be 14. His parents died tragically just four years earlier when the boy was only 9. An even that left him in the care of a stranger, who was present the night of the accident. He now lives with his adopted father, Bruce Wayne and lives with him in Gotham city and attends an academy. The day of his second day of middle school was when he met Wally West._

_The young red-head, Wallace West, who was loud mouthed and impatient, met the boy when his uncle came to visit Mr. Wayne, an old friend of his who he met on a business trip quite a few years back. When the red-head noticed the gloomy expression of the uniform clad boy, he offered him a sweet and instantly their friendship was formed._

* * *

"That's how it happened child." A voice crowed lowly as old bones snapped into place as the figure rose. "Or at least that's how it should have. But I don't typically enjoy stories like that. And neither should you. So I am going to tell you my version of the story, and we'll see how things go from there."

"But before we start, allow me to introduce myself. I am the Teller of Stories, or Teller for short. You may not have heard of me, but believe me. I have heard of all of you, and the boys in tonight's story have heard of me as well. They were the boy's who have silenced my stories, and we can't let that happen. Because I have so much to tell you all. So let us try this story again. Shall we?"

* * *

We will start out in a circus, not a very large one though. Just a simple red and white stripped tent trimmed with yellow frills. We'll put up a sign to announce the nights acts **_The Flying Grayson's_**A young trapeze artists and his even younger wife, and lets not forget that little boy of theirs. He is only nine, but the boy is rather tall and will come up to your chest if measured, but that is besides the point. Tonight that little boy will fly, for you see children, tonight is this child's first actual performance, and he gets to do it with a full crowd watching him. Oh what Joy he is probably feeling, but we won't know exactly how hes feeling unless we go in and check on him.

So now the story will take place inside the tent, so high off of the ground, a couple of ropes and bars are the only things keeping the couple from plunging to their deaths. But what is this? A loose bolt seems to have found itself into the main line. This is not good, for you do remember what happens next, don't you? This is how the whole story began, and its what cause Richard and Wallace to meet in the first place, back at the manor where Dick lives with his adoptive father- but you remember what I said would happen it they met? All of the stories would end, so let us fix that.

Now we will flash forward a little, dear children in the crowd. Watch the blonde and her dark haired husband swing across on the trapeze, appearing as graceful as swans as they performs their flips and tricks, always catching one another in a safe embrace. Now here comes the final act, their young son. We will call him Richard for now. He takes hold of the bar in front of him, and leaps off of the platform. Hes not as graceful as his parents, he is no swan, but a robin. He reaches out for his mother's arms to take hold of, because you see children, while you were all enjoying the show, I've cut the wires to that bar in particular. I told you that the boy would fly, so lets watch and see what becomes of the beloved bird.

We see that he is falling, quite fast might I add, closer and closer to the hard ground bellow, but there is two ways that this chapter of the story could end:

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**A:** The little bird hits the ground with a sickening 'crunch' and red soon paints more than his costume. Everyone is quite for a moment, no one speaks and no one moves as his parents return safely to their platform but then rush down to aid their only child, but I am afraid its to late for the boy has broken more than just bones and is far from repair. This was the original way that his parents had died, and as you remember, that's how he meets Mr. Wayne and how he met Wallace West, but now that he is gone, well you can figure the rest. His parents will weap over his body, holding what is left of their little bird close and cursing the skies though they do not seem to realize that is was me all along and at the funeral, Mr. Wayne does not attend. Those two are grown adults. They do not need an adoptive father or friend to take care for them.

* * *

**B:** But there is another way that this scene could play out. Watch closely again, at the falling boy and those down below. The rest of the circus family senses the distress and luckily, there is someone on standby. This person rushes under where the boy is falling and luckily, as if it were a scene taken from fiction, he catches the boy in both his arms, preventing him from hitting the ground, which as you all know, is not as comfortable as human arms. The boy is now safe, but not without harm. Take a closer look as his broken arm. Surely he can not preform which such an injury, and his dotting mother rushes down to him to tend to the wound. She and her husband are thankful that their son is alive, but they are not so sure about the circus anymore, or at least letting him preform.

* * *

So there are your options, A and B. I can't complete the story unless I know what scene to choose, so that's where you come in little children, decide if he lives or if he dies and we will see how the story plays out for our two young heroes. Until next time, this is only chapter one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two:**

Take things in from the random red-head's point of view. The one little 12 year old red-headed boy who was present in the crowds the day the boy fell. He saw the child die right in front of his eyes. He saw heard every step and saw everything spill out, and to be honest this was the first time the twelve year old had ever seen a dead body up close before. While this horrid event should have scared him for life, instead, the boy found himself intrigued by this, by the way that the boy had fallen. It was obvious to the all the sharpest members of the crowd that night, that this was no accident, and was indeed a murder. Though, the only one sharp enough to take notice, seemed to be this one random little boy. So from his spot in the stands, the young Wallace West sat as still as stone, one question bonding about in his head. Just a two word question.

"But why..." And those were the words, just those two little words, that had sparked the beginning of young Wallace West's career as a private investigator, but before that happened, a little research had to have been done.

So rather than returning home from the circus and going back to working on his science project, which had been the same one that his uncle had been working on years before him, the young boy named Wallace West found himself in his room that night, reading page up on page of any information given to him from his laptop. All of a boy formally known as Richard 'Dick' Grayson.

He learned that night and the following morning, that not only had the boy been close to his age, Dick being just three years younger than him, but he also discovered during his research that the boy and him had gone to the same preschool at one point. White Bridge Preschool as it had been called. In White Bridge, it was required that you interact with everyone in the building at least once. So to keep up to the rules, the two boys had spent there afternoons doing small things that would count as 'interaction'. Even going as far as sharing their wooden building blocks at one point. It wasn't much, and didn't even include talking, but it met the school's standards.

Another interesting bit Wally would soon learn, is that at the ages of 7 and 4, the two had lived just two blocks away from one another on opposite sides of the street and the more the boy thought of this, the more he realized that he had passed that powder blue house many times on his way to the park as a smaller child and while it may have just been his excitement playing with his head, he began to vaguely remember a little ravened haired boy, sitting on the front stoop of his house with an annoyingly colored ball. You could barely call the two friends, but with this information in mind, and the gentle heart he had, to Wally, that was enough to put Richard on his list of people to avenge. Now with this in his young, little mind, that an 'old friend' had been murdered, the boy quickly began his pursuit in the field of criminal justice. Or at least as much as he could do, given his age.

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**AU to Chapter two:**

Richard 'Dick Grayson's' story played out a little differently than Wallace's. If the boy hadn't fallen to his death that night, but instead left the tent with just a small break in his arm, then the red headed boy in the crowd had no need for his extensive research and would have just gone home. Poor Grayson however, left the tent and went straight to the hospital to have his arm fix and set in a sling. His mother was in a panic, reminding her husband of all of the past circus deaths and how their son might have been one of them had he not been caught. Her husband had to agree with her, and while their boy was still under, high off of his pain killers, they made the final arrangements to withdraw from their spots on the circus roster. Mary Grayson, the boy's mother, had even made arrangements to have the family live with some out of town relatives.

"Mom, I said I was fine." The young boy complained as his doting family helped him from his loaned wheelchair and into the family car later on that night.

The family, all alive and well, were on their way to the old and withered tan house, stationed just three hours away and belonging to Richard's maternal aunt, Harriet Bets. He didn't know much about her other than that she was his mother's older sister and was quite friendly to those young than her. He also knew, having been told just eight minutes, that his temporary state of residence would be at her house.

"You can never be to careful." Mary reminded him, about to return the wheelchair to the waiting nurse when she saw a raven haired man approaching them.

This man was known well as Bruce Wayne, who had been in the stands that night, right next to the sharp little red-head and was the only one from the crowd to come see if the boy was alright, and even before arriving had paid off the hospital bill for the family. So you can imagine that the mother was more than happy to talk to him. For the next fifteen minutes she buzzed about the 'old set of wires that had snapped finally'. She added in that she felt it was somehow all planned by the way that they snapped the night her son performed without the net, falling just in the right spot that he was caught and survived. By the time she had finished her story, she was in such a frenzy that she simply hugged the man in front of her before getting back into the passenger side of her car and attempting to take some deep, calming breaths before another round of tears could spring up.

After a final set of goodbyes, the old blue car was off and down the rode, heading farther and farther away from the raven haired man and the town called Gotham.


End file.
